-LRB- Budget Travel -RRB- -- Looking for cheap airfares for your big trip abroad but suffering from search fatigue ? When all else fails , try one of these tested strategies .

Even if you 've packed your bags , being flexible on departure dates could save you money .

Strategy No. 1 : Start your search at Kayak.com

We find that meta-search site Kayak is the all-time best place for scoring the cheapest plane tickets . Our biggest beef with Kayak 's competitors is that , when you click to book a fare , you 're typically directed to a new page . Sometimes it 's only then that you find out your actual departure time . Or worse , you 're forced to plug in your dates and departure cities all over again , only to discover more-expensive fares .

Kayak stands apart . Once you 've found a good flight , click on the price and you 'll be sent directly to the airline 's Web site , where the exact price for the exact flight you selected unfailingly appears .

Strategy No. 2 : Use fare-history charts

It 's the classic dilemma : Should you buy the best fare you see today or wait because the price might go down ? Here 's how to come up with an educated guess . Use Kayak to fetch fares for your itinerary and then click on `` Show chart of fare history , '' which is a link near the top left-hand corner of the search results . If the chart says that the average fare for your route is much higher than the fare you 're seeing today , then you should probably book the ticket because it 's cheap relative to historic prices .

Strategy No. 3 : Monitor fares and be ready to jump

Plug in your dates and routes , as well as a price threshold , at a fare-tracking service , such as Yapta or Hotwire 's TripWatcher . Each site will ask you to join -LRB- free -RRB- , and then will do several price searches per day . You 'll receive an e-mail alert as soon as the flight drops to your specified price . To name your `` trigger '' price , look at Kayak 's fare-history chart to see the lowest fare recorded for this route , and use an amount close to that as your baseline .

Yapta is the industry leader for tracking fares -- even Google incorporates Yapta 's data in its search results . Hotwire 's TripWatcher is also excellent , allowing you to program automatic searches of your chosen route over a 60-day window -LRB- which is a nice perk and increases the chances you 'll find a bargain fare as long as you can be flexible in your travel dates -RRB- . There is a catch , though : While both sites cover popular routes , neither covers the entire world .

Strategy No. 4 : Run a flexible-date search

You may save hundreds of dollars by moving your departure or arrival dates by a day or two , either earlier or later . To see how much you might save , we recommend you take Kayak 's flexible-date search tool for a spin -- it covers the broadest range of routes and airports of the competing tools we tested .

In our trials , Expedia 's flexible search came up with only the most popular routes , so your route may not qualify . Orbitz 's flexible-date calendar gave a nice overview of fares on various days , but departure times were not initially shown . Travelocity provided a few different ways to search flexibly -- either within a few days of a selected date , or over selected months -- but like Orbitz it failed to show dates and departure times right away . Finally , relative newcomer Trax.com 's flexible search tool lacked a `` search nearby airports '' feature , which meant it gave you fares from major airports , but missed cheaper fares departing nearby . In short , Kayak is your best bet for a flexible-date search .

Strategy No. 5 : Book two tickets instead of one

You may save hundreds of dollars if you split your international journey into different legs and buy separate tickets for each leg . For example , rather than buy a single ticket for direct flights between Chicago and Barcelona for $ 1,000 , you may be able to buy two tickets -- one for a round-trip ticket between Chicago and New York City for $ 200 and another for a round-trip ticket between New York City and Barcelona for $ 600 -- and save about $ 200 .

The quickest way to figure out if you can save by booking two tickets is to figure out if there is a hub airport that funnels most American travelers to your overseas destination . Then , look into reserving separate tickets to and from that hub .

For instance , Miami is the hub for flights to most destinations in South America and the Caribbean , meaning that a majority of Americans flying southward internationally pass through Miami 's airport instead of , say , either Houston or Atlanta . Another hub airport is Los Angeles ' LAX , which is the main funnel for people heading to Australia , the South Pacific , and Asia . New York City 's airports are common layover spots for most of the planes crossing the Atlantic to Europe and points beyond .

We recently tested this approach for a round-trip between Houston and Sydney . Our initial searches on a few travel Web sites did n't turn up any nonstop flights between the two cities , but we did find multi-stop tickets . Delta 's best fare between Houston and Sydney in November was $ 1,012 , with a stop in Los Angeles . That caught our eye . If there 's a large number of flights to Australia passing through L.A. , then the City of Angels might offer bargain direct flights to Down Under -- because the greater volume of flights often prompts a greater number of fare sales . So we checked out fares between L.A. and Sydney . It turns out they started at $ 652 .

Next , we did a quick search for round-trip airfares on flights between Houston and Los Angeles . We found flights for $ 252 , bringing our two-flight total to $ 904 -- for a savings of 11 percent over Delta 's flight for $ 1,012 .

If you decide to book two tickets on two different airlines , be sure to allow extra time to make your connections , and consider buying good travel insurance to make sure you 're covered in the event of a problem . You can save money on insurance policies by buying them directly from an insurer , such as industry giant TravelGuard , rather than through a middleman , who will charge a marked-up price .

Strategy No. 6 : Shift your trip to another month

When all else fails and you just ca n't get the fare you want , think about off-season travel . In a guidebook , look up your destination 's high -LRB- or peak -RRB- season , low season , and in-between -LRB- or `` shoulder '' -RRB- season . Then travel at a time when your destination is less crowded -- and travel costs are correspondingly lower . But do n't get rained on : before you opt for a cheaper season , you 'll want to know about the average weather , so search your guidebook -LRB- or a site like weather.com -RRB- for monthly trends .

Web searches on sample itineraries will also reveal which months are cheaper to visit your destination . For instance , we recently discovered that fares from Houston to Australia were as much as $ 800 lower in November than in January .

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Copyright © 2009 Newsweek Budget Travel , Inc. , all rights reserved .

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There are several ways to search for flights to find cheaper fares

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Use the fare-history chart on Kayak.com to see how a given fare rates

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Run a flexible date search to find out if you can save a lot at different times

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Separate trip into different legs and buy separate tickets